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Saturday, March 31, 2012

Left wing Alexei Ponikarovsky will play at PNC Arena tonight for the first time since the Jan. 20 trade that sent him from the Carolina Hurricanes to the Devils for a 2012 fourth-round pick and minor league defenseman Joe Sova.

Ponikarovsky played in the Hurricanes’ 3-0 win over Washington that night and was told of the trade to the Devils afterward. He then accompanied the Hurricanes on their flight to New York to face the Islanders and made it to New Jersey the next day in time to play in the Devils’ game against Philadelphia – scoring their only goal in a 4-1 loss.

Ponikarovsky’s wife, Inna, and three children still live in Raleigh, so as to not disrupt the school year and he got to spend some time with them Friday afternoon after the Devils arrived in Raleigh.

“A little family reunion for a few hours and then back to work,” Ponikarovsky said.

Ponikarovsky went through something similar two seasons ago when he was traded from Toronto to Pittsburgh prior to the trade deadline. That season, he would drive six hours from Pittsburgh to Toronto to visit his family when there was a break in the schedule.

“It was a long drive, but an easy drive actually,” he said. “When I was crossing the border (into Canada) there was no traffic, so it was good. Everybody knew me, so it was easy.”

He said his wife has visited him in New Jersey, but his children have not because of school.

“For sure, it’s a little bit difficult, but it’s part of the job you have to deal with,” he said. “It’s one of things you don’t expect to happen, but it happens. My kids they’ve been through that before, so thanks to technology we’ve got Skype and Face Time and everything else right now that you can chat with them every day and see them in real life.”

The trade has worked out well for the Devils and Ponikarovsky hockey-wise. After signing a one-year contract with the Hurricanes as an unrestricted free agent last summer, Ponikarovsky had just seven goals and eight assists in 49 games with them before the trade.

He has provided much-needed scoring depth on the Devils’ third line, registering six goals and 10 assists in 29 games, including the winning goal in Thursday’s 6-4 win over Tampa Bay.

“We’re playing pretty good as a team and when you’re in a playoff spot it’s a little bit different than when you’re out of the playoffs,” he said. “The atmosphere and everything else is a little bit different for sure. I guess everybody wants to win. It doesn’t matter what team it is. Right now, we’re on top and they’re out of playoff contention, but our focus right now is just to win the games and get some points on the board.”

Ponikarovsky said he still has “good memories” of his brief time as a Hurricane.

“We had a pretty young team and everybody tried to contribute in their way and tried to put everything on the table, but it didn’t happen, it didn’t work out,” he said. “You’re at that stage that you just move on and I’m on a different team right now and you try to do your best for that team.”

About

TOM GULITTI has covered the New Jersey Devils for The Record since 2002. Prior to that, he covered the New York Rangers for four years. Gulitti joined The Record in 1998 after six years at The North Jersey Herald News. He graduated from Binghamton University in 1991 with a Bachelor of Arts in Rhetoric-Literature.